Garage break-in technique exposed

Posted by on Jun 11, 2010 in Security | 2 comments

As a security professional, I sometimes struggle with how much information to divulge about security vulnerabilities.  However, by the time it makes YouTube and links circulate in email, my general thought is that criminals already know about it and the benefits of informing the public outweigh the risk.

As you can see in this YouTube video, it is possible to open many residential garage doors using only a simple wedge and a wire hook.  What was intended as a safety feature to allow the door to be opened without power creates a security vulnerability.  Using a plastic cable tie might be the best way to address this, provided that you have a way to cut the cable tie if you need to open the door during a power failure.